Tag: WordPress

Today’s Haiku, As Well As Some Frustrations With WordPress

Carl Setzer2 Comments 
flowing over stars
moonlight's gentle grace flows down
caressing my eyes

Though I’ve been writing lately, I’ve been having issues with uploading images in WordPress (I do post to Bluesky and Instagram a fair amount, too). Well, using anything other than the browser. I tried both with my iPad and my Pixel: nope. Sigh…these issues do make me want to explore a WordPress alternative. There are so many options nowadays: Wix, Squarespace, Substack…the list is impressive. For me, these options are all proprietary. As one of my core principles is that I don’t want to hand over that kind of control to a company. I can lose access to my content for any of a number of reasons, from financial to company governance. It’s the same methodology for why I won’t just go solely on a social media platform. In a similar vein, I deeply value using open source tools. WordPress is one, and Joomla is another. I could port everything over to a hand-coded static site as well. The ultimate in freedom, really. That would most likely mean that posting remotely would be impossible. So, here we go.

So, that’s where I am. Are you using WordPress? Or some other tool? And what sort of tools are you using to maintain and build your community?

Blogging Regrets?

Carl Setzer2 Comments
crop female freelancer using laptop at table at home

So, Fandango (I’m sure you’ve seen me write about him before) posted a few days ago about regrets he had during his blogging career (is it fair to call blogging a career?).

He, like me, started his blogging on Blogger. Now, Fandango regretted not starting on WordPress. I weighed all the options back in 2005 when I launched my blog. When Blogger was acquired by Google, I thought that this would be the BEST platform. And, well, I was wrong about that. I shifted over the WordPress years ago, and haven’t really updated my Blogger site (just a few random posts here and there). But Blogger gets far more hits than the WordPress site. Last month, Blogger got 1,008 hits while WordPress got 221. I expect the Blogger stats may be misleading, but I haven’t spent any time researching that.

Anyway, be that as it may. Stats are only so valuable. I get more engagement on WordPress, like the interface better, and find the ecosystem of plugins wonderful. So, though I don’t exactly regret my time with Blogger, I am glad I made the move to WordPress.

WordPress Tip: Comment Moderation

Carl Setzer
WordPress Logo

A blogger I follow is being harassed on her site. She’s done a key thing: blocking the email addresses from setting up new accounts and providing more abusive comments. One thing that people can do in addition: set comments for manual approval. Though it doesn’t prevent someone from sending you abusive comments, it does prevent them from being seen on YOUR site. It’s a simple process to set up.

First, head to your dashboard. Scroll down the left-hand side until you see “settings”. Click on that, the look for the link to “Discussion” (the image directly below is from the WordPress.com dashboard, linked via JetPack. If you’re in your site’s dashboard, you’ll see “Discussion” open up below…that’s the third image below). The last part is simply checking “Comment must be manually approved” then clicking “Save Settings”. Now, any time someone posts a comment, you’ll get a message asking if you want to approve it. It provides some sense of security via control.

WordPress.com Comment Approval Image
WordPress.com Comment Approval Image 1

WordPress Comment Approval Image
WordPress.com Comment Approval Image 2

Here’s where to find it on your self-hosted WordPress Dashboard.

WordPress Comment Approval Direct
WordPress Comment Approval Direct